CHAPTER FOUR
>XFORD
The Prince of Wales tried to lose his frown when he went
) Oxford. He was less manacled by rules than any other royal
ndergraduate before him. King Edward VII had matriculated
s a nobleman and he had not been allowed to live in college.
[is parents had sent him up to Oxford with warnings and
lies that might have been framed for a penitentiary. He was
3t allowed to wear anything "extravagant or slang," and he
as ordered to avoid "foolish and worthless persons/* He had
*en permitted to read a novel only "as an indulgence." He
id to wear a special gown when he attended debates and
rerybody rose as he entered a lecture room. He ate all his
eals with his staff, in his own house. Queen Victoria and
ince Albert were haunted by the fear that their son might
ilk in the way of his Georgian great-uncles and this anxiety
ove them to extremes of caution. The royal parents of the
it three generations have often been criticised for the way
which they have trained their heirs, but it is not easy to
ilise or understand the unique problem of a monarch who
forced to equip his son to assume his crown. The responsi-
lity is unnatural and tremendous and estrangement between
rent and son seems to be inevitable. In 1901 a leader writer
The Times summed up the difficulties that harass the son
a king.
"There is no position in the world more difficult to
fill than that of Heir-Apparent to the throne. It is beset
by more than all the temptations of actual royalty, while
the weight of counteracting responsibility is much less
directly felt. It must be with a feeling of hopelessness that
a man in that position offers up the familiar prayer, 'Lead
us not into temptation.' Other men may avoid much
temptation, but the heir to a throne is followed, dogged,
and importuned by temptation in its most seductive
forms/'
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